1. Explain, with examples, the effects that consumer can have on communities.
I took grazing animals and carnivores as examples of consumer. Grazing animals have two effects on plant communities:
1) Grazing animals’ selective feeding affects species abundance in the community
2) Grazing suppresses the growth of competitive species thus enhancing and maintaining the diversity of less competitive species. When grazing intensity is very high, diversity can be reduced as species are forced to local extinction.
3) Selective predation and prey switching of carnivores can leave rarer species unpredated. This behavior can lead to the coexistence of a large humber of relatively rare species in the same community.
《Definition of Community》
The community is an assemblage of species populations that occur together in the same place at the same time. It is the biological part of an ecosystem, as distinct from its physical environment. The community has interesting and complex properties arising from the interaction between species. Competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism occurring among individuals appear to lie behind many patterns in community organization.
《Definition of consumers》
Consumers need energy to move about and to perform such bodily functions as pumping blood. In addition, consumers need energy to synthesize all the molecules required for growth, maintenance, and repair of the body. It comes from the breakdown of organic molecules of food. Inside each cell, organic molecule may be broken down through a process called “cell respiration” to release the energy required for the work done by that cell.
Explain, with examples, the effects that consumer can have on communities.
I took grazing animals and carnivores as examples of consumer. Grazing animals have two effects on plant communities:
1) Grazing animals' selective feeding affects species abundance in the
community
2) Grazing suppresses the growth of competitive species thus enhancing and
maintaining the diversity of less competitive species. When grazing intensity
is very high, diversity can be reduced as species are forced to local...